


the desperate longing to be loved

by agentx13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Steve has a soulmark that's so common he thinks he may already have met his soulmate and simply not realized it. Sharon's words are just as trite. So when Steve and Sharon's greet each other with their soulmarks, they don't think anything of the other person speaking their soulmark. Not really. Why would they? They've heard those words before from so many other people. They probably missed their chance with their soulmark ages ago.Natasha doesn't have a soulmark. But she's Steve's friend, and she and Sharon agree that dating Steve can help him adjust and heal. And, despite his having a soulmate out there who isn't her, she might be developing feelings for Steve. What will she do when she realizes the truth about their soulmarks?
Relationships: Sharon Carter & Natasha Romanov, Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha isn’t born with a mark. It’s one of the reasons she’s selected for the Red Room; she’s one of the few with no attachments, past, present, or future. She has no reason to ever be overwhelmed or distracted on a mission. If, they say, she is properly trained.

She is trained, though whether or not it’s properly done is anyone’s guess. She does leave the Red Room, after all. She goes to work for the Red Room’s enemy.

She has no ties. Red Room wanted her to have ties only to them, but with all their lessons of how to have no ties whatsoever, how it will make her stronger and more capable, what did they expect? They’re an entity that’s separate from her. She was a part of it for a time, and she was never overwhelmed, never distracted, from that knowledge. If they’re concerned about losing their tie to her, they need to heed their own lessons.

Despite the lessons, despite Natasha’s determination to survive on her own, things don’t happen that way.

Clint is her first tie. It comes as a surprise. At first, she only wants to use him to get away from her keepers. She thinks he’s an idiot when he vouches for her to SHIELD, that with stupidity like that, he deserves to die. Fury isn’t so easily fooled, and she knows that he’s clever - cleverer even than her trainers at the Red Room. She respects that, even if she doesn’t like it.

She never intends to be Clint’s friend; his friendship happens slowly, without her even noticing. Clint gives no sign that anything about the situation is out of the ordinary, but when Natasha realizes how close they’ve become, she remembers all of the animals that numb their victims, and the victims are dead before they realize what’s happened. And here she is, one of those animals. Or maybe a better metaphor is that her first tie is like a hook on a fishing line, and she’s bitten the hook without recognizing the danger. When she realizes it’s there, though, she fights back, and for the first time feels the emotional pain she causes another.

And yet, Clint is still a friend, and Natasha begins to see that it isn’t such a bad thing. She settles into it. Awkwardly, uncomfortably, but determined to learn. Clint trusts her like no one else does, and as she tries to make good on that trust - not because they’re friends, but because the idiot would get himself killed otherwise - he trusts her even more. He introduces her to his wife, his kids, his _family,_ and Laura doesn’t bat an eye at Natasha’s sense of panic about being considered so close to someone. To be attached. No, Laura understands things - people - even better than Clint does, and she eases Natasha into acceptance. At first, the family cares about her because Clint cares about her, but soon they care about her for her own sake.

Nick becomes a tie, too. He watches her; Natasha knows he does. She doesn’t blame him. She understands the importance of keeping an eye on an untrustworthy agent. But it soon becomes overwhelming, frustrating. She gives the agents tailing her the slip, only to arrive back at the Trisk to find Nick waiting for her. And as they talk, she realizes that he respects her abilities just as she respects his.

The result of the talk is that he has her assess the trainees, even step in to train some of them herself when she’s available. She gets files on each of them and deems that most of them will either be washouts or have lifelong issues. She’s soon fondest of Bobbi Morse, who’s just as fast with sparring as she is with assessing situations and insults. The most intriguing is Sharon Carver, with parts of her file blacked out. Nick won’t tell her what that’s about, and Natasha keeps an eye on Carver as she moves through the Academy. She isn’t as quick or as graceful as Natasha or Bobbi, but she works harder, pushes herself more than the other trainees. Carver is a serious and dedicated trainee, the sort who believes in the agency’s mission, and Natasha wishes she could make fun of her for it, but also hopes that Carver won’t be as deluded as Natasha was about the Red Room. After all, ideals can lead to terrors, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

She’s sent to spy on Tony Stark, and as much of a pain as it is, she does it, and it yields fruit. The reward is not in knowing Tony - she won’t consider that a good thing for a while longer. But the reward comes in how he reminds her of Howard Stark and the other SHIELD founders, Colonel Phillips and Margaret Carter.

She’d read about SHIELD and its history when she first joined up, and did a more in-depth study when assigned to watch Tony Stark. Her focus is primarily on Howard Stark, but given his connections to Margaret Carter, she’d glanced at that file, too, to see if the families ever had anything to do with each other. They were founders; they and their immediate families had access to government protection, with family beyond that having access to it upon request and within reason. One branch of Margaret Carter’s family is blacked out.

It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but she can’t not know. It isn’t in Natasha’s nature to not be in on a secret. And when Nick won’t tell her, she pokes around some more. Tony has nothing to do with the Carter family and was barely aware of Margaret Carter’s existence, didn’t even realize his father was involved with SHIELD. The SHIELD files are under layers of encoding. Natasha knows when Nick figures out she’s looking - there are suddenly far more layers of encoding, and he nods and smirks at her the next time he sees her.

She doesn’t dedicate herself to figuring it out. Margaret Carter’s family is nothing to her, and Natasha has more important things to see to. Bobbi is coming along nicely. Some of the other trainees are starting to improve. And Sharon Carver, it turns out, has an ego big enough to tell Bobbi - thinking Natasha wasn’t listening - that she wants her code name to be Thirteen. Natasha rolls her eyes at the thought; nearly every woman at the Academy wants Margaret Carter’s designation from when she was with the SSR. Carver is one of the agents that are improving, but she isn’t high enough that Natasha thinks she’ll ever become Thirteen.

She has more tasks to distract her from research, too. Missions take precedence over training naive agents. She works with Coulson more, works with Clint, works with Nick on his likely-impossibly Avengers Initiative.

Against all odds, she has ties. There are even times when she thinks she might, one day, know more than friendship, that the mark might not stop her.

* * *

They find his body in the ice. Natasha is on a mission, but she hears about it. People can’t shut up about it. Natasha, personally, doesn’t really care. An American boy scout, trapped in the ice. Watch them throw a parade. (They do, in fact, throw a parade.)

She meets him on the Helicarrier and introduces herself. Throughout their mission of accidentally-on-purpose forming the Avengers - she should have known Nick would pull it off - she finds him to be a mess. An attractive, pathetic mess that can lift a tank.

* * *

“Why would you need that?” Sharon asks, her brow furrowing. She realizes her misstep immediately and tries to fix it by adding a “Sir.”

Nick looks at her over the file containing details of her cover, unimpressed. “Because I need someone loyal to do this. And you’re loyal. I need someone who can do this quietly. You’re quiet.”

“But Steve Rogers doesn’t need a protection detail, sir.”

Nick’s lips disappear as he presses them together. “It’s not protection from other people. Though if anybody asks, that’s what we’re saying. It’s protection from himself.”

Her eyes narrow. There’s more here, and even though she has her suspicions, she wants him to say them, wants the words out in the open.

He hesitates, then unlocks a drawer and hands her a file. She recognizes the name on the tab, a tab she doubts SHIELD thought they would ever make, and after a second’s pause, flips it open.

“He barely passed his psych eval,” Nick says. He pours himself a bourbon, something he almost never does while on the clock. He pours one for her, too. “He’s a smartass. Might have been messing with them. He does that, apparently. Something they didn’t mention in the history books.” He catches Sharon’s faint smile and stops. “What?”

If they’re drinking on the clock, this isn’t entirely a formal meeting, and Nick is almost as much an uncle to her growing up as Peggy was an aunt. “Nick. The guy’s _always_ been a smart ass. The flagpole story? Going AWOL?” She glances at the file. “He was never as clear-cut as the history books made him out to be. It’s another sort of propaganda.”

“And that’s another reason why I want you,” he says, settling back in his chair. “You’re the only legacy with SHIELD not on a mission. You know the stories - possibly better than the others.” He tips the bourbon to his lips. “You can guess what it would be like for him, waking up to everyone he loved either dead or dying, not recognizing the world around him.”

She suspects she knows what he’s getting at, and she looks at him. She suspects, but she doesn’t want to say it out loud.

“We’re planting bugs at the apartment before he moves in. You’ll listen in around the clock. You hear anything to worry you, even if he’s been too quiet for too long, you being there means you can run across the hall. Get a cup of sugar or whatever.”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

He raises an eyebrow right back.

She drops her eyes to the folder. The stories always make him sound stubborn, like he wouldn’t give up the fight even when he knew there were no other options. He’s not the sort to harm himself like that. Is he? It’s not as if you can tell by looking at someone. “You really think he’d do it?”

Nick shrugs. “You wake up to the shit he has, wouldn’t you?”

Every cell in her body rebels. She’d never been raised to give up. But then, she’s never faced the things he has. She’s never needed the strength, emotional or otherwise, to lift the equivalent of a tank. So she can’t say for sure. Which is all the more reason to be concerned about him.

She frowns and flips another page, though most of the it is information she already knows. She flips forward to the psych eval, reading the questions and his accompanying answers. “So I would just sit there, listening to him? Making sure he doesn’t do something to himself?” She would do it, but she hates the thought of that being her mission. How long could she do it before she went mad with boredom?

Nick leans forward and pushes another folder toward her. “You’d be given an assignment here, giving you a reason to stay in DC, just like you requested.”

Sharon nods. Nick is one of the few people who know about Sharon’s connection to Peggy, know that Sharon had put Peggy in a home.

“This is on the down-low. I’ll give you a team - a small one - but you report directly to me, and no one else.”

She frowns at him.

He must see her confusion. He starts to speak, then thinks better of it. “Well?”

She considers the file. As usual, Nick has thought of everything. He’d given her a foolproof cover story, found a way to respect Sharon’s request for something in DC, and he knew how to manipulate her by working on her loyalty and Rogers’ need. 

“Who are the other options?”

Nick looks at her steadily. “They’re far enough down the list that I’m hoping I won’t have to ask them.” He holds his hands to his chin. “You know I have to ask. Your marks.”

“No update.” Sharon doubted there would ever be an update. “It’s all right,” is such a common phrase. She’s starting to suspect that she wouldn’t even notice if her soulmate said it to her at this point. She supposes it would depend largely on what their words said on their skin; she hopes her first words to them weren’t as trite as theirs were to her.

He nods. His chair shifts left, right, back again, a sign that he’s waiting for her to agree.

Really, she doesn’t see how she can do anything _but_ agree.

She closes the folder. “Where will I be living?”

“Across the hall from him. There’s more.” He slides a badge across the desk. “Talked it over with some people. It’s yours. Don’t mess it up.”

The badge identifies her as Agent 13, agent of SHIELD. She wants to scream and squeeze it to her chest, maybe try biting it to see if this is a trick and the badge is foil-wrapped chocolate.

Instead, she only smiles and looks up at him. “Does this mean you’ll help me move?”

* * *

Somehow, Steve becomes a tie, an attachment. He isn’t the wide-eyed boyscout she’d thought he would be. Sometimes, she swears he has an evil streak, or at least, a mischievous one.

She still isn’t sure how she ended up helping him move. Clint had gotten suckered into it, too, and she also isn’t surprised that Stark wasn’t invited. Stark has a tendency to go overboard with everything, and Steve isn’t a go-overboard-with-everything kind of guy.

And of course, she has another reason for being here. She always has another reason for everything she does, or at least, that’s how it feels sometimes. But Nick asked her for something off the books, and he never does that lightly.

And so, when they get to Steve’s new apartment in DC, Natasha sends a text to Carver to let them know they’re there. Agent 13 now. Nobody had asked what Natasha thought about that. Obviously.

“She’ll watch out for him when he’s at home,” Nick says, and Natasha doesn’t ask why Nick wants someone watching out for Steve Rogers, Captain America. “You watch out for him when he’s on the clock. Let me know if you notice anything that concerns you.” He gives her Carver’s contact information and leaves her alone. Natasha doesn’t ask why Nick chose Carver for this. She’d have recommended Bobbi, herself.

Natasha knows she should have had a meeting with Carver before this, had a sit-down to make sure they’re on the same page about who will do what and how to communicate, but she’s been running missions back to back with either the Avengers or with SHIELD. They’d just gotten back into town that morning, and Natasha hadn’t wanted to risk doing anything out of the ordinary to rouse Steve’s suspicions. He’s smarter than he looks. Smarter than he lets on, too, which wins him a degree of grudging respect.

Steve carries boxes upstairs as if they’re filled with feathers, gliding upwards with a fluidity that stokes Natasha’s envy.

She isn’t surprised when she spots a familiar blonde coming down the stairs at the same time, looking like she’s about to go for a jog.

Steve rounds a turn in the stair, three boxes piled so high in front of him that he can’t see over them. Carver jumps out of the way to avoid a collision, and with Steve’s speed, Natasha appreciates how much training that must have taken.

She still thinks Bobbi would be the better choice for this mission. Someone more relaxed, more able to draw Steve out of his shell.

Steve stops when he catches sight of Carver, freezing like a deer in the headlights.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Carver says automatically, and Natasha has to wonder if Carver is really apologizing for something that isn’t her fault, which would be in keeping with Natasha’s reading of her, or if it’s part of her cover. “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s all right,” Steve says, just as automatic. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. You all right?”

Carver nods, staring at him in a way that suggests she’s falling into Steve’s eyes as Natasha has seen other women - and some men - do before. Carver rouses herself and looks at the boxes. “Moving in?”

Steve nods, and Natasha notes with amusement that he’s looking at Carver the same way she’d looked at him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah.” He glances at the boxes in his hands and resettled his grip, belatedly pretending the boxes are heavier than they are. Natasha notices that his new grip makes his arm muscles bulge and looks at him anew. She’s not sure if Steve is trying to impress her with his muscles on purpose; if so, he’s more admirably manipulative than she’d thought.

Carver smiles brightly. “I’ll let you get back to it, then. Welcome to the building!” She hops down the stairs, not seeming to notice the way Steve turns to follow her down. Natasha and Clint both skirt aside to let her pass, and Natasha grudgingly resolves to text her later to let the young agent know she’d done well, something she can’t do with Steve still looking after her.

Clint clears his throat. “Cap. Come on, man. These boxes might not be heavy for _you_ , but they are for _us._ ”

Steve looks like he would have turned red if the serum would allow it, and he runs up to his apartment so fast that he has to come back to lead them to the right one.

He only has five boxes total. It turns out he’s asked them to help him move mostly so they can grab pizza together. It strikes Natasha as sad, and it must seem that way to Clint, too, because he delays leaving to see his kids in order to stay, and he usually only puts off seeing his kids if there’s an international crisis of some kind.

But Clint can only stay away from his family for so long, and before long, Natasha is coming up with excuses for staying longer, helping Steve unpack and keeping him company. She wonders if Nick’s right to be afraid of leaving Steve alone.

* * *

They schedule their first meeting in Sharon’s new apartment. Beforehand, Sharon tries not to feel nervous, including trying some breathing techniques. She knows that Romanoff will be judging Sharon’s aptitude; she isn’t even sure Romanoff could help it.

She also knows she isn’t Romanoff’s favorite agent. That’s the trouble with being trained to read people. Sharon knows she was never any of her teachers’ favorite agent. She’s too quiet, too studious. She doesn’t make jokes when she thinks the timing is inappropriate. She isn’t outgoing enough. She isn’t charming. She doesn’t flatter people. She only teases people she knows. Nick had let her read one of her evaluations once, saying he thought she’d find it amusing. Maybe, in actuality, he was testing her. The words “reliable, but unremarkable,” are seared into her memory like a brand. After that, she hadn’t tried so hard to please the people around her, rededicating herself to her goals. She’s reliable like that.

Romanoff texts her that Steve will be making use of the SHIELD gym - one of the few equipped for his strength, and that Nick will keep an eye on him so they can finally meet. Sharon has already made a mental list of everything they’d need to go over. She’s sure she’ll be judged on that as well. This is Romanoff. To have Romanoff’s respect - not that Sharon needs it, but she wouldn’t mind having it - she has to be prepared for everything. But for respect, there has to be something remarkable about her. She tries not to think about it.

She fails immediately when she opens her door to find Romanoff standing in the middle of her apartment with a bottle of wine.

“You strike me as a Chardonnay kind of girl,” Romanoff says in greeting. Without further ado, she steps into Sharon’s kitchen and pulls out two wine glasses, pouring them each a generous glass. “Did Nick let you choose your own furniture?”

Sharon offers a murmured thanks (she isn’t a Chardonnay girl and never has been) and considers her answer. Romanoff is trying to throw her off her guard, and Sharon doesn’t want to give in. “No. I’m too much of a junior agent. You know how it is.” Or does she? When had Romanoff last been a junior agent?

“Such a junior agent that you got a plum job protecting Captain America,” Romanoff says, raising an eyebrow at Sharon. She hands a glass of wine to Sharon.

She takes a polite sip of the wine and wishes it were something more flavorful. “I’m aware of the responsibilities entrusted to me, Agent Romanoff. I’ll see it through.”

After several seconds, a corner of Romanoff’s lips rise in what might be a grin. A few more seconds, and she says, “You know this isn’t an assessment, right?”

Now it’s Sharon’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You’re always assessing.”

This time, Romanoff tilts her head, and then she grins outright. “All right. Let’s talk.” Without waiting for an invitation, she drapes herself in one of Sharon’s chairs. 

Sharon primly sits on the couch. Waiting. At Romanoff’s continued silence, she glances at the other woman. 

Romanoff’s smile is teasing. “You go first. So I can assess.”

Sharon isn’t the blushing sort, but if she were... She clears her throat. “Obviously, given Rogers’ unpredictable schedule, we need to communicate more. I have to know how best to avoid him at the Trisk. Ideally, we would meet once a week to discuss his mental health. I understand that can be difficult, given that you have so many unpredictable obligations...”

“I like Friday lunches,” Romanoff said with so little pause Sharon knows she’d been thinking the same. “You’ve realized the challenge there...”

“There’s no way you would ever hang out regularly with Rogers’ nurse neighbor,” Sharon says with a nod. “We’d have no reason to know each other. And if any SHIELD agents see us eating together, they’re going to gossip.” She glances at Romanoff in time to see the biggest smile on the other woman’s face that she’s ever seen. It isn’t big by most people’s standards, but for Romanoff, it’s huge. At least, as far as Sharon knows. “Logically, it depends on a variety of variables. We may have to play it by ear. I suggest that, unless there’s an emergency, you contact me.”

Romanoff nods. “So long as you’ve got a place scoped out.” 

“Several. I figure you’re the sort to like mixing up the types of restaurants and locations, not allowing for any sort of predictability and all that. And I’ve found some hole-in-the-wall type places most agents are unlikely to recognize us.” Sharon, more likely. After the Battle of New York, Natasha has dolls made in her image.

Romanoff smiles again. “You know me so well, Carver. Should I be worried?”

“You keep that up, I’m going to think you’re flirting with me.”

The smile remains, but this time Romanoff stays silent.

Sharon sighs. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say, and not just because Sharon has a soulmate out there somewhere. More importantly, she has a mission. “Let’s focus on the mission for now, shall we?”

* * *

Even Steve has to admit that he likes the nurse across the hall. She’s sweet, kind, and pretty. She’s easy to talk to. What isn’t to like?

Probably how much it scares him that he finds her so easy to talk to. He’s had few crushes in his life, and only one was ever reciprocated. The thought of pursuing something with her, no matter how easy she is to talk to, makes his palms sweat.

He hates to think of what she must think of him. He knows he sometimes plays his music loud enough for her to hear, because she’s come over to warn him a couple times. Each time he’s been concerned she might somehow know that he’s trying to drown his memories out with sound. She never says anything, but he still wonders if she sees more than she lets on. It’s just a feeling he gets sometimes.

A stupid feeling, he knows. He’s just been hanging out with Natasha too much. Natasha is as unlike Kate as a person can be. A wicked sense of humor, incredible reflexes. He trusts her with his life. No expectations other than that of a teammate. He thinks he understands her, or at least understands her as much as a soldier can understand a spy.

And that’s all he is, really. A soldier. No friends. No family. No connections. A soulmate, somewhere, but his words are so common that he sometimes thinks he could have already met them and never realized. Maybe they’re dead, too, just like everyone else he’s known before. He has nothing but his job, no one but his coworkers, and no matter what he does, he can’t forget that they, too, will die. Maybe he’d freeze again and only find out they were dead years after the fact.

He was alarmed at first to find how romantic people find his story. He saw a magazine at the grocery store shortly after moving out of the Trisk - pictures of him in uniform while fighting the Chitauri - asking who would melt his heart in the modern age. It took him weeks to show his face at the grocery store again.

That’s why he likes being with Natasha. He knows she isn’t interested in him - she keeps trying to set him up with other people, after all. He doesn’t have to risk sweaty hands with her.

And she doesn’t have any soulmarks, which is kind of nice. He wouldn’t have to worry about someone coming along and matching with her. Not that he’s thinking about that. She obviously isn’t interested in him, not if she’s trying to set him up with people.

It’s just... his soulmark is so common that even Kate said them to him on the stairs. “I’m so sorry.” Steve had heard it before in a variety of ways. He’d heard it since then, too. He doubted he was soulmates with hundreds of people, from the people who told him his father died, to when his mother was dying, to when he was too scrawny to serve his country, to when he’d woken up and everything had been different. Again, again, again, and again, he’d heard that damned, neverending phrase.

He’d never heard it from Natasha, though, and he doesn’t think he ever will. It’s kind of nice. It doesn’t mean anything, obviously, but it’s nice.

So he tries not to think about it much when he asks her if she wants to grab a cup of coffee sometime.

* * *

Natasha has eaten in worse places than the Trisk broom closet and nicer places than Fury’s private meeting room. She’s got to hand it to Carver – she finds unusual places to eat. It’s never the same place twice. But then, Carver has always been diligent.

She slides onto a bar stool at the deli. “He asked me out. I accepted. Figured it would help to keep an eye on him.”

If Carver is surprised, it doesn’t show. “That’s good. Him forming attachments is good.” She places her order and considers as Natasha places hers. “Could you give me a heads up when you two go out?” she asks, sounding almost shy. “I haven’t had much downtime lately.”

“Sure.” Not as diligent as Natasha thought, though she keeps that – and the faint tinge of disappointment – to herself. She’d started to think Carver was better than that. If Carver were with the Red Room, she wouldn’t even be allowed outside in between mission. American spies are soft. “Anything I should be aware of?”

“He’s been listening to his music less.”

“And that’s good?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t elaborate. Their drinks are set before them, and Carver glances at her. “I don’t think either of us believe this is a sustainable situation.” Natasha doesn’t answer. “Could you try to do things with him that get him out more? Into groups of shared interest, or… just so he meets people outside of SHIELD or the Avengers?”

Honestly, Natasha is having more difficulty in hiding her disappointment with Carver. The woman had finally managed to rise in Natasha’s esteem, and then that faltering statement, her earlier comment about downtime. Was Carver a professional or not?

This, she thinks, is why she would have recommended Bobbi. Bobbi didn’t make faltering statements. Bobbi doesn’t take time to herself when she’s on a mission.

And to suggest setting Steve up with more things to do, as if Natasha hadn’t already planned to do so...

“Sure,” she says instead. “Let me see what I can put into motion with coffee.”

Carver nods, and they chat while they eat, more or less companionably. Something’s off, though, and Natasha wonders if Carver is upset Steve didn’t ask Carver out instead. Natasha is starting to wonder how Carver could ever recover her former position in Natasha’s estimation.

“Do you still train?” Natasha asks.

“When I can. It’s been tough to make time.”

Natasha nods and tosses her wrapper away. “Make time. You can’t afford to get lazy.” She stands. “See you next week, Carver.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha figures out some potential, and certainly painful, truths.

Sharon sits on the barstool after Natasha leaves for what feels like a long time. In actuality, she still has time to get back to work before her lunch break is over, but she gets the feeling she’d just been admonished. And an admonishment by Natasha Romanoff is a serious thing.

Damn it, Sharon _knows_ she needs to train more. But between babysitting agents at the Trisk and babysitting Steve at home, she hasn’t had _time._

Make time, Natasha had said.

Part of her is really starting to resent that woman. Sharon can admit it’s because Natasha is right, but that doesn’t ease the sting.

She doesn’t waste time addressing the rebuke. She goes to Nick’s office after hours; Steve is on a mission, and she knows Nick will be working late. It’s what he does. She waits for his response to her knock and then lets herself in. “I need to be able to spar. I’m getting rusty.”

He looks at her for several seconds, torn between amusement and irritation. “You don’t want me to spar with you.”

“I respect your ancient hips too much to risk injuring them.”

He grins. “I’ll work something out. Expect an answer by this time tomorrow.”

She nods and lets herself out, knowing a dismissal when she hears one. She visits Peggy on her way home, then lets herself into her small apartment. She busies herself cleaning her already-clean apartment, taking a shower, throwing herself into research for Project Insight, trying to find a way to dispel her discomfort with the project.

It isn’t until she’s lying in bed in the darkness that she can’t evade the unkind thought anymore. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Romanoff, with no marks to speak of, should get to date Steve, the man who had spoken the words on Sharon’s skin. And to think that Steve had asked Romanoff out instead of her.

But that just seals the deal, doesn’t it? Steve Rogers was never her soulmate, and she’d been silly and stupid and childish to think he might be. She should just try to be happy for Natasha. It isn’t as if Steve Rogers would ever like _Sharon._ He probably hasn’t even noticed her, for God’s sake.

Reliable, unremarkable, and _stupid,_ she chastises herself, tossing in the bed.

She has to face facts. Her soulmate might not be found. Ever. She should focus on the mission. Not any of this soulmate nonsense. Not on some unsubstantial hope.

Reliable, unremarkable, stupid, and unloved. But hardworking. Dedicated. Loyal.

She sighs and cleans the apartment again before she tries again to sleep.

* * *

Things get better. Not that they were bad. But Steve seems to be happier with Natasha. Sharon sometimes gets the impression sometimes that it’s because he’s trying to be happier, but he stops playing his music too loudly and his footsteps don’t shuffle so much on the floorboards. It appears to be an improvement.

She has several sparring partners, mostly based on who’s available at the time. She generally has to go someplace else – it wouldn’t do for Steve to enter her apartment for some reason and see that the sweet nurse next door has sparring mats and punching bags. Grant Ward is a sleaze. Melinda May ( _the_ Melinda May) is patient and grudging, but she works through the moves _with_ her rather than _at_ her. Bobbi Morse is teasing and active, relentless but measured. She even gets to spar with Hawkeye a couple times.

And something clicks. It’s the way some of them work _with_ her, the way they seem to see her as an equal overall who just needs a few pointers here and there, and she realizes that she’d been learning in spite of the earlier teaching styles, the yelling and lecturing. It’s like a light going on in a dark room. She keeps working out in her bedroom, away from Steve’s sensitive ears, and adds new moves. She reads manuals from various time periods and cultures, watches YouTube videos. She knows a better way to learn now, and the improvement is clear.

She manages to drop Hawkeye. Bobbi. Ward (twice, both times for fun).

May gives her a knowing look when Sharon arrives to their sparring session. “I’ll make you work for it.”

“I’m not asking for otherwise.” She doesn’t drop May, but it’s not for lack of trying. And the way May looks at her after the session is reward enough.

On top of that, she gets to see Peggy more often. Steve visits Peggy, too, and Peggy seems happier, healthier. It’s only a pause in the decline, another in an endless series of plateaus, but it’s something.

* * *

Things are not going well. Natasha knows it. Steve knows it. They’re officially dating. He’s the one who officially suggested it, in fact. She’s not sure why things aren’t going well, why things are so awkward and uncertain. Maybe she still hasn’t learned enough about ties, about connections. But she knows they aren’t going well.

“What about your soulmarks?” she asks when he first asks her out

He shrugs. “Who’s to even say they’re still alive?”

But they are, she wants to argue. Soulmarks don’t fade unless the person has died.

But Carver had said to draw him out of his shell. Get him involved with other people.

And to be honest, she’s never dated anyone before. Not really. Not genuinely. He hasn’t, either. It’s a learning experience for both of them. If it becomes more… well. She’s not against that.

Until she is. One day he kisses her, and she quells her panic. She’s barely gotten accustomed to forming ties. A real relationship is pushing it. What if she hurts him? She doesn’t want to hurt him.

Why does she even care? The Red Room taught her better than that.

But she’d left the Red Room, hadn’t she.

She stares up at him, her brain whirring away like a machine on the fritz, and he grins down at her, abashed.

“Sorry,” he says. He takes a step away and tucks his hands in his pockets.

She shakes her head. She tries to find the words, fails, tries again. “That might be the first kiss I’ve had where I haven’t tried to kill the person after.”

His grin widens. “The night’s still young.”

His lack of fear helps. It reminds her that she isn’t the only dangerous person here. She takes his hand and pulls him closer. “Better make it worth it.”

It isn’t the last of their kisses. In time, they become more normal. In time, they become more, and she melts at how he fumbles and apologizes and how respectful he is, even when he’s thrusting into her.

Stepping out of his apartment one day at the same time as Carver, she can tell that both Steve and Carver are taken by surprise. Steve is a little quiet after that, but Carver never mentions it. 

Stupidly, she forgets about the media. And then everyone knows. People try to joke about it with her at SHIELD, which results in promises of violence that they know she’ll follow up on.

She wants to say she’s happy. She wants to _be_ happy. Contrary to all her training, all her conditioning, all the torture she’d gone through in that Red Room hell, she wants to be happy, and loved, and treated like she matters.

He does that. He does that and more. He gets her flowers and takes her out to dinner, does surprise picnics in the park. He makes her feel loved, like she matters.

But she also feels like an impostor. There are still the words on his skin. She hasn’t found them yet, but she will. She doesn’t want to find them, doesn’t want to know what they are, doesn’t want to be on edge every moment for those words being spoken, but she knows she can’t help herself. She’s always been the sort of person who’s had to know, even if it might hurt her.

Maybe the problem is that something’s missing. She doesn’t know what it could be. She knows it’s something wrong with her, hopes it isn’t the marks, but she knows something is wrong.

And sometimes, she thinks he knows it, too.

* * *

Sharon knows she can’t pretend she doesn’t know who he is anymore, not with his face plastered on glossy magazines with Natasha’s right beside his. Or attached to his.

The first time she sees him after the news breaks, he meets her eyes and looks faintly embarrassed. He’s carrying a basket of laundry; she’s sitting on a washer, legs crossed, reading a book on Nursing Care Plans. Her cover as a nurse makes it easy to research ways to help Peggy.

His eyes rest on the book. “Homework?”

“Something like that.” She marks her page and sets the book aside. “I get why you wouldn’t tell me.”

He looks at her blankly, but he clearly knows exactly what she’s talking about. He distracts himself by tossing his clothes in the washer beside hers.

“I won’t salute you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He grins. “That’s not what I’m worried about.” His grin fades. “I’m thinking about moving.”

There’s a pang in her chest, sudden and sharp, that she does her best to ignore. “I hope you don’t,” she says, utterly sincere. Too sincere. She looks away. “You’re one of the better neighbors I’ve had.”

“I can’t believe that.” He finds a sock and tosses it in with the rest. “Besides, what if people get hurt because someone finds out Captain America lives here?”

Moving is the smart play. They both know that. And he’ll make the smart play. He’ll move. It’s only a matter of time. “I know. You’ve got a target on your shield, for God’s sake.” She shrugs. “I guess I’ve just gotten used to having you around.” She pauses, worried he’ll think she’s being too forward. He’s with Natasha. Just because he said her words doesn’t mean they’re soulmates, and it doesn’t mean she can think of him that way. “Too many of the people here are... older. You know? I don’t want to get a new neighbor who smells like celery.”

He chuckles. “I’m probably older than any of them.”

“You don’t smell like celery,” she points out. She doesn’t need dossiers to know he uses Irish Spring.

He watches her, a little too much, a little too closely, and she shifts her weight. “Maybe I can give you my forwarding address,” he offers.

She musters up a grin. “I’d like that.”

* * *

“He hasn’t said anything about it to me,” Natasha says. There’s no resentment in her voice, but Sharon can sense the suspicion of it the same way she can sense when May is about to strike.

“It may have been because I was in the right place at the right time,” she allows, though it’s more out of politeness than certainty. “But it’s the smart move. He’ll make it. Which means we’ll need a different agent watching him.”

Natasha dunks the same fry in her ketchup for the eighth time in a row. “I’ll talk to him.”

Sharon studies her, not betraying her surprise. “He won’t change his mind, Agent Romanoff. He doesn’t want other people getting hurt. This is what he’ll do.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Natasha repeats, and gets up to leave.

Sharon, alone again, sighs and texts Nick.

* * *

Why, Natasha scowls, would Steve talk to Carver about moving first and not her?

The worst part is, Carver’s probably right. No, not probably. Steve’s going to move. They’ll have to scratch Carver’s cover and find someone new to fill in.

She remembers how much she wanted Bobbi in the position, but she’d rather Bobbi not hear the sounds she and Steve make when they’re together. Bobbi’s teasing… Natasha likes Bobbi, but she’s not sure she could take it.

She’s never thought of how Carver could hear those sounds, too. Carver had never brought it up.

At least Carver can keep her mouth shut. Except for things Steve talks to her about.

It’s ungenerous, and Natasha knows it. Carver was just doing her job.

No, this is uncharted territory for Natasha. She’s never had a relationship before, never a real one with real affection. It’s messing with her mind.

But she thinks she has a solution. For now.

She texts Carver and Nick. They approve, Nick more quickly than Carver, and Natasha has that unsettled feeling again as the seconds before Carver’s response tick by. What the hell is she worried about, anyway? Right place, right time, Carver had said. Maybe Steve had just been in a sharing mood that day, or wanted to give her a heads up about a larger apartment opening up in the building.

She shoves the thoughts aside and makes her way to Steve’s place. He opens the door, and she shoves her way inside. “I’ve been thinking,” she announces.

“You usually are.”

She turns to face him. “Now that more people know what you look like without the mask, things might get too hot for you around here. What would you say to moving in with me?”

He hesitates, and the hesitation kills a part of her soul she’d never known she had. And then he smiles. “I’d love to.”

She smiles back, trying to shove aside thoughts about his hesitation just as she’d shoved aside so many others.

“That means you’ll help me move, right?”

* * *

No one says it, but Sharon knows Nick is looking into reassigning her. She tries not to let it bother her. She’d gotten accustomed to her work with Project Insight, accustomed to arguing with her coworkers about failsafes and protocols, and she’d come to love her sparring sessions with whoever Nick could scrounge up. 

She’d always known it wouldn’t last. Maybe she’ll get accustomed to the next place, too. She hopes so.

She wants to offer to help him pack but knows that’s Natasha’s area. So instead she just greets him as normal, and meets with Natasha as normal, and fights the urge to offer to buy him a coffee on the occasions that they leave the building together.

* * *

Natasha finally sees the marks. “I’m so sorry.” She brushes her fingers against them, making him shiver.

“You know those are sensitive.”

She hates to think what anyone listening in on the recording devices will think of their dialogue. “I’ve just never seen them before.” She wishes she had. “It must suck, having a common phrase like that.”

He shrugs. “I make do.” He pulls her closer. “Like so.”

The kiss is slow, languid. The memory, unbidden, comes to her while their breaths mix and her hand snakes down his chest.

_”I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”_

_“It’s all right. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”_

She breaks the kiss. He’d told Carver he was moving out, not Natasha… They were common words. They might not mean anything.

She lies on top of him. “What do you think of your neighbor? The one across the hall?”

He blinks at her, jolted out of his admiration of her body against his. “What? Kate?”

Natasha nods. “You think she’s pretty?”

He wraps his arms around her, his hands warm and strong. He thinks, then shrugs. “Not pretty enough to distract me from you.” He goes in for another kiss, and she meets him, but she can’t focus.

What were Carver’s words? Natasha never asked. She’d never even asked Carver if she _had_ marks. She knows so little about Carver, hadn’t been able to find out anything. A junior agent, hardly more than a rookie, and yet assigned to protect Captain America. Things like that don’t happen by accident. More like fate. A sort of destiny.

No. No, no, no. Natasha can’t have missed this.

She pulls away, Steve’s hands frozen in the air behind her, reaching for her. She hastily gets dressed. “I just remembered something. I’ve got to go take care of it.”

He pushes himself up, concerned. “Want help?”

She shakes her head and pulls her hair back. “You can’t help with this.”

That much is true, at least.

* * *

It isn’t often that Natasha calls her to an emergency meeting. Sharon forces herself awake enough to not alert Steve to her motions as she opens her door and heads downstairs.

Natasha is at the corner store and almost pounces on her as soon as she’s in sight. “You have marks, right?”

“Yeah, why.” She’s tired and cranky. If Natasha wants to make fun of her for not having found her soulmate yet, Sharon might very well try to punch her. No guarantees.

“What are they?”

Sharon’s nose wrinkles. “Why?”

“Just tell me.”

Sharon sighs. “’It’s all right.’”

“That’s it?” Natasha’s eyes are narrowed and sharp. Her words are quick.

She shrugs. “What do you want me to say? It’s common. There aren’t fireworks that go off when you hear them. No fanfare. Someone says them and you wonder if it’s your soulmate and it turns out it isn’t.”

“What do you think of Steve?”

Sharon can’t answer that right away. “I’m not trying to take him from you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You two talk a lot?”

“Just when we see each other.”

“And how often is that?”

Sharon shrugs. “The point of this assignment is that I’d see him, remember? Even go by and check on him. Which I don’t do as much now because I don’t need to, since you’re there.”

“You did an admirable job of hiding your relationship to Peggy Carter.”

Sharon blinks, but she’s tensed too much and knows Natasha has seen it, knows that Natasha intentionally changed the subject so suddenly just to get that reaction. “That’s above your paygrade, Romanoff.”

Natasha leans back, watching her.

Sharon wishes she’d put on a bra before running out to the emergency meeting. If she’d known it was going to be an interrogation, she could have tried to dress more appropriately. She supposes it’s for the best. She’d started to think, from Natasha’s behavior, that something was wrong. But no, it had all been a ruse to find out Sharon’s ties to Peggy.

“Why not tell people?” Natasha demands. “You could have gotten farther, faster.”

“That’s not how I want to get farther, faster,” Sharon says, with a tiredness in her very marrow. “I know, okay? I’m reliable and unremarkable and you wanted another agent on this mission. It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about me and Steve. This is my mission, and I’ll see it through.”

Natasha watches her but doesn’t speak.

Sharon sighs and grabs some random goods. Peanuts. A bottle of something. A box of something. She tosses it all on a counter and pays, then leaves without a word. Natasha doesn’t move, just follows her with her eyes.

Reaching her hallway, Steve is carrying a load of laundry out of his room. He sees her and instantly looks concerned. “You okay?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Technically true.

He blinks at her, and she remembers again that she isn’t wearing a bra, and her hair is probably a mess, and – oh, no. The top of the box is visible in the bag. She’d bought condoms. A lot of condoms. Jesus.

She tosses him the box. “It’s my nursely duty to make sure you and your girlfriend are safe.”

“Right. Um. Thanks? I-”

But she’s already let herself back in her apartment. She feels tired and alone and like she could gladly hit something. A lot of somethings. First, though, she wants to go to sleep.

* * *

Natasha avoids him. She doesn’t say aloud to herself that she’s doing it, as if by not admitting it to herself she’ll have some sort of plausible deniability. She responds to his texts, usually with emojis that say nothing and probably confuse him. She works missions with him and keeps things professional. But that’s it. She tries to get him to talk about Kate again, but it doesn’t work.

She wants to scream at him but doesn’t know why and doesn’t know what she’d scream in the first place.

She needs to get out of this. She needs to find something that doesn’t make her thoughts do somersaults, that doesn’t turn her feelings into a convoluted mess.

She picks him up for a mission. Driving away, she asks him about his new friend, but he hedges, and she keeps the conversation light and doesn’t give him a chance to bring up their relationship. Because she knows that once they talk about it, she’ll have to break up with him. Because she knows she shouldn’t have attempted a relationship with him at all. He’s Captain America, she’s Black Widow. He’s a symbol of hope, she’s an assassin.

And she certainly isn’t his soulmate. All she knows for certain is that she’s surrounded by idiots who don’t talk to each other, and she may be the biggest idiot of all.

She doesn’t tell him that when she tells him they can’t keep doing this. She just tells him to ask out the nurse across the hall, or the girl from accounting, or anyone. She wants him to be happy.

And the hard, painful truth is that he will never be happy, not truly happy, with her.

* * *

“You couldn’t wait until he moved out?” Sharon says as she lets Nick into Steve’s apartment. She hangs back as he walks inside, uncomfortable and unwilling to step deeper in than necessary. The space is so clearly Steve’s, full of his belongings and his presence. Listening to bugs is one thing. Invading his space is another.

“I can’t wait at all.”

“And you can’t tell me what it’s about.”

“I will. Just not yet.”

She nods. She won’t get more out of him than that. “Want me to turn off the bugs?”

He glances at the window and moves away from it. “I’ve already scrambled the signal for everyone but you.”

She doesn’t want to know how he did that. Instead, she nods and locks the door behind her. Peggy chooses that moment to call, and Sharon’s still on the phone with her when her team alerts her that Rogers has entered the building.

She tells herself she only slips up because it’s been a long day. When he comes up the stairs, she hastily says goodbye to Peggy and drops her phone in her laundry.

He asks her out. At least, she thinks he does. Her. He asks _her_ out. And she wants so much to say yes. But she’d already told Romanoff she wouldn’t. And she’s working a mission. And he doesn’t even know her real name. Doesn’t know who the aunt on the phone is. She almost hopes he never finds out.

All it would cost is a cup of coffee…

She swallows and declines, stupidly blurting something out about the infectious disease ward.

He must be distracted, too, because he doesn’t ask why she just tossed her phone into her infected clothes.

She hastens down the stairs, so discombobulated she almost tosses her phone into the washing machine with her clothes, and hurries back up. She’s just gotten through the door when she hears the gunfire, and she automatically grabs her own gun. She almost forgets her walkie, too – with Nick having scrambled the signal, she’ll need it.

She crashes into the door, then through it, and pauses. The room is dim. Dim and quiet. “Steve? It’s me.” She keeps her gun at the ready, not sure where the gunman is. She moves deeper inside.

He sees her. His expression is alarmed, suspicious.

“Agent 13 of SHIELD Special Service,” she explains. It’s intended to reassure him. But it appears to break something within him. She sees Nick on the ground and ignores the pain on Steve’s face as she hurries forward.

A report comes in over the walkie. A shooter.

Steve tells her to tell them he’s in pursuit. He’s gone by the time she can turn to look for him. 

She feels like something’s broken within her, too, but she still has a mission. She relays the message and focuses everything she has on saving Nick.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon and Steve accept their soulmarks, but Sharon isn't willing to accept that Natasha is out there somewhere, feeling like she'll never find love. Fortunately, Sharon has an idea to address that.

Their way of life changes in more ways than one. The two of them are broken up, and she needs to leave. She needs to get away from him and get her head on straight and find something solid she can hold onto.

Before she goes, Natasha pushes him again, more directly, to ask out Kate.

“She’s not a nurse,” he says knowingly.

“And you’re not a SHIELD agent.”

In the end, Natasha resorts to trickery. She wants to go find herself, but she can’t do it until she’s sure Steve is settled. Just because they’re not together anymore doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about him. She texts both of them to meet her at a coffee shop and watches from nearby as they see each other, awkwardly shift their weights and look everywhere but at each other. And then Carver - _Carter_ \- moves to speak to him.

They talk for over four hours. It’s only when they approach the fifth that Natasha figures this is as good as it’ll get, and she leaves.

* * *

They talk for hours. She apologizes. Introduces herself as herself. Really as herself. Tells him why she was assigned to him.

He’s wary, but he doesn’t leave. He answers, ask questions. She answers, asks some of her own.

It isn’t a date, she tells herself. It’s more of a confession. It’s a five-and-a-half-hour-long confession.

That ends with him asking if she has his number.

She confesses that she does.

“I don’t have yours. Seems like we should make it fair.”

Not knowing what to make of that, Sharon gives him her number. “You’re not going to prank call me, are you?”

“Depends on if I get bored, I guess.” But he grins at her, and she grins back.

He calls and asks her about meeting up again.

It still isn’t a date, she tells herself. She agrees to meet him at a bar.

She can’t tell herself it isn’t a date after the kiss.

It starts like an experiment. He’s hesitant. Cautious. As if he isn’t sure this will work. But the feeling of his lips against hers… She could melt into him forever.

When he finally pulls away, he looks at her as if surprised.

She blinks up at him. Their heights aren’t so different that she has to look up much.

“What does your mark say?” he asks, and his voice is raspier, deeper.

“’It’s all right.’ Yours?”

“’I’m so sorry.’”

They look at each other.

“We’re idiots,” Sharon tells him.

He laughs and kisses her again.

* * *

She meets Sam by mistake. He comes to surprise Steve in the hotel room and finds her instead, Steve in the shower. It’s awkward, but at least it’s out of the way.

After he tells them about a lead on Bucky, and yes, that news is still sinking in, she looks at Steve and he looks at her. Real life exists, as much as they may want to ignore it.

She gets a job at the CIA, mostly to get access to their resources to find Bucky. Partly because rent doesn’t pay itself, and the CIA doesn’t pay much, but they pay. She doesn’t hide her name this time, and Natasha is right – she goes farther, faster.

On the rare times Steve can come visit, they’re attached at the hip. Sam talks about being a third wheel and makes jokes, and she and Steve make jokes right back. They’re too content to take offense at anything anyone might say about them.

It’s when she sees him freeze when he sees red hair that she feels some of the happiness sift away.

She’s more alert after that. She feels like she knows him; he’s the person she talks to about things she can say with no one else, and he tells her things that no one else knows about him. She pays more attention to when he’s quiet, when he’s thoughtful, to the way his voice subtly changes when he talks about her.

One day, unable to take anymore, she parks her tiny BMW (she’s stationed in Germany; almost everyone has a BMW) along the side of the road and looks at him. “You miss her, don’t you.”

“We’re soulmates,” he reassures her.

“You don’t have to do that with me, Steve.”

After a moment, he nods. “I don’t know. I know I shouldn’t.”

“Nonsense.”

He looks at her, surprised, and she shrugs.

“If you want to look her up…”

He stares at her, then shakes his head. “I love you.”

“But you also love her,” Sharon says gently. “It may never have been a choice with me, but it always was with her, wasn’t it?”

“She was my first, I guess. In a lot of ways.”

Sharon sighs. He isn’t saying yes, but he isn’t saying no, either. The things they don’t say make things so much more complicated than they need to be. She starts the car again.

“You know I love you, right?” he says.

She glances at him and beams. “Trust me. I know.” And she does. The gap between unloved and loved is a wide chasm, and she’s been in the depths of that chasm most of her life. 

Which is one reason why she’s so worried about Natasha. They might not be friends, but Sharon knows what it’s like to feel unloved, and no one deserves that.

She also knows Steve is too noble to consider cheating on her. She’ll have to handle this herself.

* * *

She tracks down Natasha in Czechoslovakia, sitting on a bar stool and working her way through a bottle.

“I’m good for it,” Natasha says without looking at her. “I have a high alcohol tolerance.” She eyes Sharon. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to ask you out on a date.”

As expected, that gets Natasha’s attention. And almost gets Natasha to fall off the bar stool. “Thought you were with Steve.”

“I am. Your point?”

Natasha’s thumb strokes the glass as she tries to come up with an argument. “You two are soulmates.”

Sharon shrugs. “I think he’d be happier if you were around. I think you’d be happier with him around. I don’t think I can step aside anymore.” She paused. “Which means we have to get along. Better than we have.”

“We get along fine.”

“Agreed. But not fine enough for a relationship where we’re both with the same guy.”

Natasha watches her, finishing off the bottle in one endless guzzle. “I may have underestimated you.”

Sharon wants to say that’s why she’s a spy, or that she’s been trained to be underestimated, or that she knows what people say and they’re right but it doesn’t matter. Instead, she only grins and shrugs.

Natasha points between them. “Which one of us is paying?”

* * *

They meet for drinks, sometimes they meet for dinner. Natasha can tell that Carter - _Sharon_ \- is putting in the effort, so she puts in the effort, too. She talks and flirts and acts like she would with a mark.

And Sharon’s eyes dance in a way that says she knows what Natasha is doing and understands that Natasha can’t help it.

Natasha tries to help it. She wants something genuine. She’s tired of being alone. She’s tired of knowing there’s no one out there for her. She wants to have more in her life. She’s gone from dreading connections to craving them.

After one dinner, Sharon catches Natasha’s hand as they’re about to part ways. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll get there. I’m very reliable that way.” And she presses a quick, soft kiss to the corner of Natasha’s lips.

Reliable. Natasha had read that evaluation. She’d scoffed at it at the time, thinking again that Bobbi was a better fit. And she remembers that Sharon had called herself reliable before. And unremarkable. Two words from one source. A coincidence? Her grip tightens on Sharon’s hand before Sharon can pull away. “What makes you say that?”

“My evaluation. Nick let me read it.”

Ouch. Few of the evaluations are kind. They’re designed to look for flaws. Natasha frowns, remembering how hard Sharon had worked, how she’d pushed herself.

Natasha had been unkind to her, even back then. Had she somehow suspected Sharon was a threat? It’s true that Sharon is a better spy than she’d anticipated. But no, Sharon is soft. She’s the girl next door. All her edges and thorns are hidden too deeply to be easily discovered.

She watches Sharon steadily; Sharon watches her right back. No shifting weight, no fidgeting. Only assessing. Natasha wonders if she can help it.

“Your place,” Natasha says carefully. “Where is it?”

“We might have company,” Sharon says, leading the way, “but maybe that will be good. A chance for the unsaid things to be said.”

Natasha studies her as they walk. She has a dislike of unsaid things, too. “What if I’m not thinking about talking?”

Sharon looks too patient for Natasha’s own good. “We’re all people of action in different ways,” she muses. “But a misstep could be… unfortunate.”

“You know, sometimes I think you don’t trust my assessments.”

Sharon grins. “Only because I’ve seen you rush to judgment before.”

That’s hard to argue with. Sharon is proof of that. “Does being soulmates make it easier?”

Sharon thinks before she answers; it isn’t just for show, either. Sharon is genuinely considering it. “It makes it easier to communicate. There’s a pull when you’re away from someone too long. An awareness of when they’re around. Sometimes I can guess what he’s thinking, but that’s just because we talk so much that I understand him better.”

Natasha frowns. “I won’t be able to do that.”

“Train harder,” Sharon tells her. It almost sounds like she made a joke, and Natasha’s blinks at her in surprise. She can’t remember hearing Sharon joke before.

Sharon leads her up to an apartment. Opening the door, Steve’s voice comes before she can speak, explaining that Sam chose to stay at a hotel for some _inexplicable_ reason, and then his voice catches as he see Natasha.

“I guess I should introduce you to my side piece,” Sharon says, and Natasha’s never heard her be so teasing.

Steve clears his throat.

Natasha grins, and she feels shy and young and uncertain. All her ideas about taking strong action seem silly now. “Hi, Steve. Hope you don’t mind that I seduced your girlfriend.”

Sharon scoffs. “She’s still trying, actually.” She moves to the kitchen. “Natasha. Sangria?”

“Sangria?”

Sharon holds up the bottle. “I’m a sangria girl.”

Natasha never, ever would have guessed. “Sure.” She looks at Steve, who looks at her, then looks at Sharon again. “So. Sharon asked me out.”

“Sharon forgot to mention that,” Steve says wryly. He leans against the couch.

This isn’t going to work. She should go. But then Sharon is there, handing her a glass, and she stares at it a moment before she kicks it back.

“Glad I didn’t poison that,” Sharon says, handing Steve a glass, too.

“I didn’t know you were funny.”

Sharon wrinkles her nose. “You hadn’t earned it.”

Natasha sets the glass aside. “I’m going to earn it.” She speaks firmly; she isn’t sure if it’s for their benefit or her own. She moves in front of Sharon and ignores Steve. Carefully, she raises herself to her tiptoes, one hand steadying herself against Sharon’s chest, and presses a kiss to Sharon’s lips. It’s reciprocated, and the kiss is cautious, exploring, inquisitive. It’s very much a first kiss, Natasha thinks, pleased. Pulling back, she meets Sharon’s eye and murmurs, “Remarkable.”

The corners of Sharon’s lips curl upward. She knows exactly what Natasha is doing. “You just wheedled your way into the bedroom,” she acknowledges softly.

“Wait until you see what else I can wheedle myself into,” Natasha exclaims, letting Sharon lead her to the bedroom. She glances over her shoulder to see Steve standing there, flabbergasted, and she realizes that Sharon isn’t doing this because Sharon likes her. No, Sharon is doing this because she loves Steve, and Steve likes Natasha.

It doesn’t sit right with her. She doesn’t say so out loud, doesn’t tell them that she won’t be a backup or an alternative. She knows she isn’t their soulmate, but she _will_ be their equal.

Steve already loves her. Maybe not to the extent he loves Sharon, thanks to the soulmarks, but he loves her nonetheless. Sharon, though… She’s going to have to seduce Sharon. And maybe Steve some more. Not that she minds.

It starts that night. Thanks to the Red Room, no one can claim Natasha doesn’t know anatomy, and she has Sharon screaming into her mouth within an hour.

* * *

She wakes up to Steve’s hand heavy on her midriff, Sharon on her other side, curled up and facing away, the bumps of her spine a trail begging to be touched. She likes being in the middle, she decides.

She drags a light finger along Sharon’s vertebrae, grinning to herself as Sharon shivers and turns to face her.

“I know what you’re doing,” she murmurs sleepily.

“Oh?” Natasha sounds far too innocent, even to her own ears.

Sharon nods and yawns. “You don’t have to try so hard. So long as you want to be here, you’re here.” It’s clear she doesn’t mean merely in their bed.

Natasha sobers. “I want to try.” She hesitates. “I’m sorry I didn’t think better of you. Back when I trained you. Back when I started working with you.”

Sharon grins. “I know. You had a crush on Bobbi.”

“I did not!”

Sharon’s grin widens, but she doesn’t answer.

“I didn’t.” But even as she says it, she knows it’s true.

“You like blonds,” Sharon teases. “Tall ones. Who can kick Grant Ward’s ass.”

Natasha likes when Sharon teases her. “You know,” she threatens, “I know some very nice ways to punish people.”

Steve makes a choking sound behind her, and Sharon waggles her eyebrows.

Snuggling closer, Sharon asks, “Promise?”

Natasha smiles at her. This is the genuine Sharon, she thinks. Playful. Considerate. Willing to put others before herself.

Steve, too, is genuine. He’s hardly ever not.

Whatever they feel for her, whatever this arrangement is, it’s genuine. And loving. And kind. If not always to her, then for her. And Steve. Because this, as hard as it is to define, is still a form of genuine love.

She likes it. Loves it. And she’s going to do everything she can to make it last.

“Promise.”


End file.
